Remember, our task is not to evaluate quantum mechanist as if we are scientists. We are to consider what the consequences of QM might be for humanistic inquiry. Dr. Bencivenga notes that many of these interpretations of QM challenge not only our everyday notions about objects, but it also challenges the very structure of our language.
One everyday opinion is that the world is made up of different elements, or substances. In other words, there is some basic material or basic unit that makes up the world. In Ancient Greece, the basic components of reality were called atoms. Today, particles such as electrons are thought to be the most basic components. Yet modern physics challenges the idea that there are some basic components. Electrons can be created from energy. One kind of energy can be transformed into another kind of energy. According to modern physics, it appears as if the world is not made out of basic components or substances. It appears instead that the world is made up of energy. Heisenberg compares this idea to the idea of Heraclitus, an Ancient Greek philosopher.Heraclitus thought that fire affects particles. Energy moves things. Fire is the source of bodies just as particles can be made out of energy.
Heisenberg also refers to Anaximander. Anaximander thought that the origin of the universe was something indefinite or something indeterminate. He thought that things emerge out of this indeterminacy before returning back towards indeterminacy. Heisenberg thought that this idea is supported by QM. This theory still includes the idea that there are material objects in the world. According to Anaximander, material objects simply emerge out of indeterminacy and exist for awhile before returning to a state of indeterminacy.
Dr. Bencivenga encourages us to consider whether it is even the case that there are concrete, material objects in the world. In the Rutherford Gold Foil experiment, he shot large particles at a thin sheet of gold. Many of the particles were able to travel through the gold foil without any impediment. Rutherford hypothesized that this happened because the particles themselves are not material but are rather empty. They are not substances. Dr. Bencivenga suggests that what we think of as basic units (e.g. quarks) are merely points in space organized by forces. Heisenberg indeed seems to think that QM supports the claims of Pythagoras, another ancient philosopher. Pythagoras thought that the world is not made up of matter but rather is made up of mathematical form.
Quantum Mechanics even seems to undermine our langauge and logic. Language, for example, is thought to be made up of elementary sentences, such as "All bachelors are single". In such a sentence, there is a subject (what we are talking about) and a predicate (what we are saying about that thing). In the previous sentence, "all bachelors" is the subject and "are single" is the predicate. Yet QM challenges the notion that there are any basic facts that are true about the universe. It even becomes difficult to talk about a specific subject if we take QM seriously. At one point, an electron may be a wave and at another point, that same electron may be a particle. It seems impossible to even refer to any single object. Logic itself is also based on the principle of non-contradiction, meaning that one thing cannot be one way and the opposite way at the same time. But QM seems to entail the fact that at any given point, any object both is and is not in a certain position or is or is not travelling at a certain velocity. In other words, QM seems to require contradictory descriptions of entities. For example, light is both a wave and a particle--which had often thought to be contradictory.
Another notion that should be challenged by QM is the notion that scientists are somehow neutral and disinterested observers. Heisenberg notes that scientific endeavors such as the Manhattan Project (the project that led to the genesis of the atomic bomb) reveal that scientists are not merely observing the world but that they also shape the world in important ways. Dr. Bencivenga notes that at a time when many German scientists left Germany in order to support Allied forces, Heisenberg stayed in Germany to help the Nazis to make an atomic bomb. A recent book argues that Heisenberg remained in his homeland in order to purposefully stall these experiments. the NaAlthough we cannot know for sure if Heisenberg was trying to help or hinderzis, we can clearly see that science has many important moral consequences.
Traditionally, nature is often thought to be either a resource or a threat. It is an other with which we interact. The most authoritative means of interacting with nature has been science. Since the time of Galileo, science has gained a reputation for predictability and reliability. Dr. Bencivenga argues that this reputation is based on an old-fashioned notion of science that has its proper place in the 19th century and before. We often think that there is objective knowledge about the world that science can discover. But this idea seems outdated now. Since Max Planck, a revolution in the sciences has occurred. QM is one major aspect of this revolution. Relativity Theory is another important aspect of this revolution. According to Relativity Theory, space and time are relative to each person. Another aspect is Chaos Theory, according to which all things are singularly complex entities that can be thrown into chaos at some unknown breaking point. The most important moral to draw from these developments in modern science is that we should not be too optimistic about the extent to which the traditional scientific method can help us to understand the universe.
Traditional views of science see the scientist's task as a neutral observer of nature, but Dr. Bencivenga encourages us to see science as a dialogue between a scientist who is involved in and who affects nature.
No comments:
Post a Comment